EDITORIAL

The Islamic Voice completes twenty five years of publication with the issue in hand. Its first issue hitting the stands on January 1, 1987 was just a 8-page, single sheet tabloid in single colour covering the news hard to find elsewhere in times when communication revolution was not even in offing. From a two-room, asbestos-roofed structure, the monthly has grown to a 32-page sleek—though not entirely—tabloid that has not missed a single issue since then.
Communication revolution leaves us often wondering if the monthly still has scope of being read by extremely techno-savvy, English-reading people. Events simply pass us by. Even the dailies are being rendered irrelevant, thanks to the communication revolution. Spoken word and running text has overtaken the printed word in both speed and efficacy. The fact that it is not so in matters of credibility is the sole satisfaction that keeps the hopes aflame.
The journal, we are firm, retains its objective and essence, though not in same measure. Continuity has been a partner of change. It no longer views the world as it viewed then, thanks to the availability of larger canvas of the information-aided globalised world. Cascading information and access to the most hidden recesses of the world has made the task of selecting the news much arduous. Issues are—and have to be—analysed in much broader perspective. As readers must have noticed, the journal was never a dyed-in-the-wool, archetypal magazine clinging to an unchanging model. It has attempted a broader sweep when it comes to analysis and has blended in itself all that could be humane, beneficial, productive and constructive and missed our monochromatic glasses. It has meticulously kept itself away from sectarian outlook of Islam and not shied away from chiding the ones who imprison the divine guidance in narrow confines of time and societies. It has disappointed the propagandists as much as the ones who had mistaken it for an organ of outmoded ideologies. What has endeared it to most of its readers is its amenability to new ideas, propensity to absorb and incorporate change and being voice of those who believe in action rather than mere words.
Islamic Voice remains conscious of its limitations. First among them is its periodicity, followed by English language, and reach in an age when snail mail is tardier than earlier and people’s tendency to look askance at efforts at interpreting the religion. Apathy towards media, something inherent in the audience that is its principal target, is a factor that cannot be simply overlooked. But that does not deter us from being hopeful. Change is slow and unsteady. But there are enough triggers that await to be pressed. Winds of change have delivered those straws. Let us hope to meet you more often than we do now.